Prelude
by DSK7723
Summary: A first action fought, a harsh reality glimpsed, and an endless journey begun. Prequel to The Last Year. AU


WARNING: This story contains a significant spoiler for the final chapter of The Last Year.

23.3.20364 (Republic Standard)

From her perch beside a rooftop air conditioner unit, she took a moment to survey her surroundings and to take the measure of the place. It was a warm evening, the air damp and still and laced with a melange of unpleasant odors that contrasted sharply with the remarkably-lovely sky, which was deepening from a pale aqua to a deep jade as the sun sank behind dusky violet clouds that gathered in the west. The rooftop beneath her boots was permacrete, weathered and dirtied to an ugly, sooty beige hue and littered with the detritus of maintenance crews and employees sneaking up there for illicit breaks. If the shipping company that had once occupied the building hadn't folded nearly a year ago, she would have informed somebody in authority that at least a few of their employees suffered from spice addiction.

Behind her to the east, and also away to the south, stretched the outer boroughs of Joatek - seventeenth-largest city on Gavryn - like an disorderly thicket of grey and brown and tinted glass, its skyline randomly rising and falling, with elegant new skyscrapers emerging from the undergrowth of decrepit old tenements. Below and in front of her lay a large expanse of bare permacrete, which even from thirty metres up was at least as filthy as the roof, only that much of the refuse down there was far larger. There lay everything from toppled shipping containers to empty barrels of lubricant and hydraulic fluid, to a heap of unwanted office furniture piled in the northeast corner. Notably, however, the centre of the supposedly-disused landing field was marked only by smaller waste such as smashed bottles, electrical insulation (stripped of its wire), a pair of decomposing shoes, and the like. Her impression that the field was still in use was reinforced by the fact that the rotting couch leaning against the gate on the west side of the fence was propped up on the _outside_, where it could be more easily moved when necessary.

Of course, Bastila already knew that this field wasn't as unused as it appeared, because that was why she and her master were there. Abandoned, yes, in that it was no longer owned or maintained by anybody, but not unused. Beside her crouched Ildra Ylantelo, her hands resting casually on her knees. She was forty-four, but possessed the sort of face that left the casual observer guessing as to whether she was notably younger, or else much older. Her features were sharp, her almond-hued skin firm, her collar-length hair the deepest jet black, her arms filled with sinewy strength, her chocolate eyes deep and filled with wisdom. _And sometimes sadness. She masks it well, and thinks I never see, but I do._ Bastila had wondered what distant pain those eyes were seeing in those brief moments of melancholy, but had never dared to ask. Even as a teenager, she knew that everybody had memories they didn't wish to keep.

_Focus,_ commanded a cold, stern voice in her head. It was her own voice, of course, the one she always used on herself when she started straying. _Focus on the mission._

"The Solicitor General lied to us," she voiced an opinion she had been holding in check for the last three weeks. She had remained silent on the assumption that her master must have sensed the deception as readily as herself, and that she had some tactical reason for choosing to ignore it. She had also done so because her thoughts had been kept busy by the investigation, but as the moment of action drew nigh, she felt it best if she had an explanation.

"Lied, or withheld information from us?" Ildra countered.

"Does it make a difference?"

Without looking at her, Ildra gave a mirthless sideways smile and answered, "Perhaps not to you, but to a politician, those are two completely different things. Even a manipulation of the truth wouldn't be a genuine lie in his mind, merely an act of creativity."

"Then what do you suppose Mr. Paemat withheld?"

"To begin with, he has concerns beyond the 'war on crime' he's supposed to be waging: namely, unseating Premier Xorajen in the next election."

In reply, Bastila pointed out the very obvious: "But he was appointed by Xorajen."

"Precisely, and the Premier could just as easily sack him if he suspected Paemat's intentions and was given a suitable pretence. If, for instance, Paemat's Justice Department continues to fail in its efforts to disarm the syndicates."

Bastila withheld another question, tried to sort out the facts as she understood them, tried to make them fit within a logical framework, and ultimately failed.

"Forgive me, Master, but Mr. Paemat never admitted to requesting Jedi assistance, and he felt very reluctant to accept our aid, did he not? I understand that he can't fail in his duty, or else he'll be disgraced, and his career ruined, so why wouldn't he want our help? It's not as if we would take credit - _Jedi_ have no need for fame or recognition - so he could still feel free to make himself appear the hero."

"He could claim all the credit he wants, but it wouldn't be true, and information can be a very slippery thing. Dysfunctional though this planet's government is, it remains a democracy with a largely free press, and the truth would leak out eventually. Now, granted, Paemat's career would be safe if we succeed in our mission, but he would hardly appear the decisive leader he needs to if he's to win the election, now would he?"

"I suppose not, especially since he didn't even seem to be aware that weapons are being smuggled in from off world."

"Indeed. You should also bear in mind the point that it was a deputy director of the Justice Department who made the actual request for Jedi assistance, which makes me believe that the request originated with the Premier, and was passed on by Paemat to his subordinate because he doesn't want it on record that he had anything to do with it. He's not exactly insolvent, and I'm sure he could pay that deputy director to take the blame if something goes wrong. In short, Paemat has no reason to want us to succeed, or at least not succeed entirely, and I'm sure he's hoping we don't. It's my suspicion that he plans for us to do the dirty work of flushing out the smugglers, and for his people to make the actual arrests."

Yes, that did make sense now, but Bastila still couldn't escape the memory of standing at attention beside Ildra in Paemat's palatial office, listening to the Solicitor General outlining his problem, and feeling so utterly _certain_ that he was lying to her. He was a very cool man, betraying nothing through his body, but his mind was a twisted knot of lies within lies, and there was danger tangled up in there. She had wanted to probe his thoughts, knew that she could have done so had Ildra not sensed what she was planning and sent her a very clear _no_ through the Force. If she had one particular talent that stood out above all others, it was her affinity for penetrating others' thoughts. It had come to her early in her training, and had only strengthened since, to the extent that she suspected she may even have already surpassed her master in the field.

"I could have gotten the truth from him," she declared confidently. She had, after all, managed it with a few rather unsavoury and uncooperative individuals during the course of their investigation.

"Perhaps," said Ildra rather coldly.

"And without him knowing," she added quickly in defence.

"Perhaps," Ildra repeated, then turned to face her squarely, and regarded her with a stern gaze. "Even if you'd succeeded, and even had you uncovered some wrongdoing on his part, what would you have done with the knowledge you gleaned?"

"Whatever was appropriate. I don't know what I would have learnt from him, but I would have told you and the Council and whoever else was necessary."

"And told them what? That you got this information by prying into the mind of a senior planetary official? The Republic has laws against that sort of thing: they call it espionage."

Bastila couldn't suppress the impulse to shake her head in derision. "Privacy is all well and good, but surely not when it's at the expense of justice. What if Paemat's idea of 'dirty work' includes sending us into a trap?"

"I've considered that possibility, and obviously so have you, so we shall at least go into this trap _knowing_ that it's a trap, which usually makes all the difference."

Bastila knew that statement to be true enough, and yet… _Trust in her judgement. She's your master, and it's your place to trust her,_ she admonished herself. _I _do_ trust her - of course I do - and how couldn't I?_ Still, this was her first field assignment, and she had never before been in a situation so rife with danger that she couldn't keep from feeling some…trepidation. It wasn't fear, no, certainly not fear, but…trepidation…yes, that was it. She had every right to be concerned, after all. When she finally managed to voice her concern, however, it was done with the greatest care and respect.

"Forgive me, Master, but if you suspected treachery, why didn't you warn me sooner?"

Ildra turned to her and smiled with what might have been genuine warmth.

"If you suspected it, why didn't you ask me sooner?" She paused, only to continue just before Bastila could formulate an appropriate reply: "If I'd told you what I thought, how could you have come to the conclusion on your own?"

On hearing that, Bastila's doubts somehow instantly melted away, as they always did when Ildra found precisely the right thing to say at the right time. Her certainty returned, the steady weight of her faith in her master and in her teachings righting the world around her and once more holding it on an even keel.

"My apologies for doubting you," she said in a voice that was at once humble and sincere.

"You are both wise and clever, Bastila, and once you add patience to that mix, you'll be a truly great Jedi."

"Thank you, Master. I do try."

"I know, Bastila."

It was then that both women felt a ripple pass through the Force like a tremor of footsteps might pass through the ground, and knew that the moment they awaited was nigh.

"As nice a view as we have from up here, we're too exposed," said Ildra as she stood.

Heartily agreeing with her (and quietly asking herself why they had been on the roof to begin with, except perhaps to gain an overview of the place), Bastila was nary a step behind her on the way down. A door led to a stairwell and, taking care to shut the door behind them, she followed her master down the twisting flights of metal steps without a noise. They left the stairs on the third level, passed through bland white corridors with floors turned grey with dust, all of it bathed in dense shadows broken by shafts of fading light emanating from open doorways. The sun was below the horizon now, its light leaving the world as the two Jedi slipped into a large open room that, at one time, most likely housed a sea of cubicles and was now adorned with naught but a few bare wires hanging from the walls. The air was heavy and stale and laden with dust stirred by their passage, but Bastila did little more than take note of the discomfort as she crouched beside a window. Ildra unlocked the window, forced it open partway, then shut it again, leaving it unlatched, before crouching beside her.

She watched the long shadows dissolve on the floor and walls, spreading like pools of ink until they had swallowed the room and the corridor beyond. It was not yet entirely black, but dark enough for there to be little to see with naked eyes, which Bastila shut against the shadow. She sought instead to look upon the currents of the Force that flowed around her and through her, revealing far more than she could ever hope to physically see or smell or touch. She felt and saw ripples and eddies spreading outwards from little points of light, touching and connecting and colliding, sometimes harmoniously, but all too often with harsh and discordant results. In recent years, she found herself able to make ever more sense of the overwhelmingly complex landscape, going beyond merely reading dangers and opportunities and the like.

Right now, she was sorting through the currents, reading the tremor she had felt on the roof. It was a steady flow, clear and purposeful, but dark, and it lead forward to…a convergence with another flow, this one thinner and rougher, if no less dark than its companion. Beyond that convergence, the future was obscured by what was nothing less than a storm, a tangled mass of choices and possibilities that refused to be unknotted, or at least by her limited skills. It was well that she had been taught not to overly rely on prescience, as she knew not to be alarmed by the murkiness of the future: there were usually many potential futures, and which one would come to pass would be determined by choices made in the present. _Focus on what's certain, on the here and now._

There were landspeeders approaching her position from the south…three of them…with seven people spread between them. They were mostly relaxed, having done this many times before, but still wary enough, still ready for trouble even if they didn't earnestly expect any. One of them was clearly the leader, her own aura of purpose encompassing those who travelled with her, if not altogether dominating them. _A leader, but not an absolute one. They follow her because she's done well, and pays them well. No true loyalty there._ She was confident whilst simultaneously being more alert than the others as her little convoy approached the gate. Even so, these people had done this all many times before, such that it felt almost routine to them, and it was this familiarity that would prove their undoing.

The weaker current was more remote, less easily discerned, though she nonetheless knew it to be a ship, descending somewhere in Gavryn's crowded airspace, and knew that those aboard were buzzing with anxiety. Of as much concern to her as the smugglers, however, was the suspected trap, but that remained a frustratingly diffuse set of ripples with no pattern for her to discern against the background noise of ordinary life on Gavryn. It was as though corruption and deceit were so pervasive, so deeply woven into the fabric of society, as to mask this particular deceit.

"Bastila," a distant voice drifted into her consciousness.

"Bastila!" it repeated in a forceful whisper as she brought herself back to the here-and-now. On opening her eyes, she saw that the room had been plunged into pitch blackness, knew that she had lost all measure of time, and therefore had also lost control. She had been adrift, unaware of the passage of…hours?

"Sorry, Master," she reflexively apologised, even as she noted the sheen of icy perspiration that now covered her beneath her robes. _You overdid it. This is hardly the time to weaken yourself. Focus._

"They're here," Ildra told her in a whisper so low only her Force-enhanced hearing could have discerned it. The elder Jedi was now wearing a set of glasses that glowed with a ghostly image of the landing field, faintly illuminating the centre of her face.

"I know, Master. Three speeders with seven people…and there's a ship inbound."

Concealing her surprise at the extent of Bastila's insight, Ildra merely nodded.

"Patience now," she cautioned, and pointed with her eyes to a tiny dot on the window.

_A camera._ It was, of course, necessary to obtain indisputable evidence of arms being shipped in from off world. From the pre-mission briefing and her own independent research, and from listening to Ildra's conversations with Paemat and other Gavryn officials, she had formed an impression of a regime that was largely content with the abysmal status quo. Rather than making any significant effort to combat the syndicates, it instead passed ever-more repressive laws that did little more than burden the planet's law-abiding citizens, whilst having little real impact on crime. As Ildra had said, it was all about appearances: men like Xorajen and Paemat made it appear as if they were faithful public servants, when all they cared for was power. Even their own investigation, she suspected the more she thought on it, was more about the power struggle between those two men than it was about apprehending smugglers or crushing the syndicates._ No matter. Politics are beneath Jedi concerns,_ she reminded herself. _Peace, justice, compassion… That's what matters, and that's why we're here._

Ildra's plan was simplicity itself: they were to record the rendezvous and transaction, then plant tracking devices on the ship and one of the landspeeders. They had concealed their fighters a block away, and would shadow the ship to its home port, whilst alerting the local police to intercept the ground convoy. As she crouched beside her master, whose attention was held by the video feed from the camera, Bastila reached around to the small of her back and felt the bulky contours of a dart gun. She wasn't terribly familiar or comfortable with the weapon, but the tracker itself was sufficiently "smart" to find its way to the target, provided that her aim was at least moderately true.

She may have had no view outside, but she could sense the ground convoy idling outside the gate as the couch was moved, then passing through to the landing field. Aware that she would need her strength soon, she avoided the temptation to probe the hearts and minds of the people who piled out of the speeders and fanned out across the field. She felt the slightest prickling of danger as they searched the premises, but the search was quick and cursory, and the danger receded to little more than a remote possibility in the back of her mind. Even so, she kept herself aware of the possibility, though she did not worry about it, just as she kept herself aware of the proceedings on the other side of the wall.

As the minutes passed, she read a creeping, heightened tension in those seven people out there, and guessed that the ship must be running behind schedule. She could still feel it up there, drawing quite near, in fact, but those who awaited its arrival evidently had no contact with the pilot, and were left to wonder and worry. _And there is only one pilot aboard,_ she realised. Of course, she had no inkling if this was significant or not, having little knowledge of the smugglers' routine. All that she and Ildra had gleaned from snooping around some of Joatek's less hospitable boroughs was the location of the landing site and the approximate time of the next delivery. Whilst a definite improvement on anything Paemat's department had managed to uncover, it was still precious little on which to build an operation, and however much confidence her master might project, Bastila was far from comfortable. They didn't have much of a choice, though, given that they had learnt about the delivery not two days ago.

In the end, the ship couldn't have been more than ten minutes late, but even that was sufficient to have the reception committee keyed-up and ready for action. She could feel their relief wash over her like a cool mist when the ship appeared in the night sky, felt hands relax away from concealed blasters. The uneven rumble of engines vibrated through the windows of the room, signalling the arrival of a private yacht which was not precisely in ideal condition. The rumble soon faded to an indistinct hum, the engines idled but still powered up in case a sudden departure should prove to be in order. She felt the irritation of the woman commanding the convoy as she confronted the pilot, undoubtedly demanding an explanation for what had gone wrong. Up until then, the pilot himself had been nervous, even fearful, but now that was instantly transformed into indignant anger. _He had trouble getting through this time…a good deal of trouble…_ Something had gone awry for him along the way, and now he was looking to dispose of his cargo and get away as swiftly as possible. At a command from the woman, her six comrades set about offloading the containers of arms.

A subtle change in Ildra's mien signalled some new development that went undetected by Bastila's senses.

"They opened the cases for inspection - we have our evidence," whispered her master.

The wait continued, however, until the last of the cases was transferred from the yacht to the speeders and the smugglers were all back aboard their vehicles. At that moment, Ildra stripped off the glasses, stood halfway, and slid open the window a few centimetres. Bastila followed suit, drew her dart gun, took aim at the yacht as the hum of its engines rose into a rolling rumble and pushed it away from the permacrete in a maelstrom of dust and debris. A light on the butt of the gun came on, indicating that the tracker as armed and locked onto the ship, and she pulled the trigger, then immediately ducked back behind cover. Ildra had already fired her own tracker, and now snatched the camera off the window before scrambling across the room to the door.

Bastila was on her heels as they broke into a run, tearing along blackened corridors, guided by a sight that bore no relation to what they saw (or couldn't see) with their naked eyes. Over the rapping of their boots on the tile floors, she heard Ildra speaking into her commlink,

"Joatek Dispatch Oh-Eight, Joatek Dispatch Oh-Eight, this is Jedi Master Ildra Ylantelo. Do you copy?"

Ildra stopped, kicked open a door, ran into an empty room, paused.

"Joatek Dispatch Oh-Eight, do you read?"

The room was briefly filled with blue light as Ildra slashed through a window with her lightsaber. The transparisteel panel toppled outwards, followed by the two Jedi, who sailed out into the cooling night, pushing off from the onrushing ground to cushion their landing. No sooner were they on their feet once more and sprinting through an alley, than Ildra resumed her attempts at contacting the local police.

"Joatek Dispatch Oh-Eight, this is Jedi Master Ildra Ylantelo requesting assistance. Do you copy?"

Bastila felt the prickling sense of danger returning and amplifying as she dashed along a lonely street lighted by the dim orange glow of streetlamps.

"Nothing but static," Ildra announced with more than a hint of frustration as she stuffed the comm into a pouch on her belt. "We're being jammed."

"And the trackers?"

Ildra was a step ahead of her, a receiver unit already out of its separate belt pouch, and the story it told was no better.

"Nothing."

"Then what do we do now?"

Ildra delayed her answer, although whether out of indecision or merely the rapidity of her breathing, Bastila would never know for certain. When she heard the answer, though, she knew that she herself would have hesitated before making such a decision.

"I'll follow the convoy from the air and hopefully contact the police - if not, I'll stop them myself. You'll have to intercept that yacht alone."

"Intercept it alone?" she repeated incredulously as they flashed past an ill-kempt (and probably inebriated) young man shuffling along the sidewalk, who called out something unintelligible (and almost certainly obscene) in their wake.

"If the tracker is being jammed from the yacht itself, then you can't let that ship jump to hyperspace. I know you're perfectly competent in the air, and you shouldn't have any trouble overtaking it. A few warning shots should turn it around, but you may shoot to disable if they don't."

"And what if… Master, I don't think I'm ready for this."

"I have faith in you, Bastila," said Ildra as they turned down an alley.

The narrow, cluttered passageway lead to a vacant lot behind yet another in a long string of dilapidated old buildings, and therein sat their waiting fighters.

Without slowing, Ildra added that, "Ever since you were a youngling, you've only ever tried to do the right thing."

"Thank you, Master. I shan't let you down," she replied with as much false confidence and genuine humility as she could muster, suspecting all the while that Ildra's decision had less to do with faith with the exigencies of the moment.

As she climbed into her cockpit and ran through the pre-start checklist, a part of her was thinking that this was absolute madness. Yes, it was only a civilian yacht, but the facts remained that she was not yet wholly comfortable at the controls of a starfighter; that this was her first field assignment (how many times had she reminded herself of that in the past three weeks?); and that she had never before fired a shot at a real, live target. On the other hand, it was not her place to question the judgement of a woman who had been doing this for three decades, only to obey her orders. _You doubt and question too much,_ she chided herself as the cockpit displays came alive. When she called up her sensor display, there were, as expected, no tracking beacons to be seen.

The canopy slid shut and sealed with a hiss, silencing the rising whine of the ion engines, and she tugged on the straps of the ejector seat. Lastly, she slipped on her headset and tried to conduct a comm check, as much out of habit as of hope. All she got was static, so in place of words, she and Ildra exchanged quick glances through their canopies, and her master sent her a pulse of reassurance through the Force.

A rising sense of urgency told her that that was all they had time for, and, pushing past the fear and self-doubt swirling in her stomach, she eased up the repulsorlift power. Positive rate of climb…undercart up…clear of obstacles…forward thrust, pitch up…airspeed alive, repulsorlifts coming off. This was all standard procedure, no different than if she were making a training flight back on Dantooine, but she knew some non-standard business would be coming up shortly. First of all, she had no contact with air traffic control. _They can't be jamming too widely, though, not with all that traffic up there,_ she thought as she plotted a course through the swarm of craft criss-crossing Joatek's airspace. _Not comms, anyway, but the beacon's another matter._

Stretching out with her senses, she could just barely discern the smuggler against the backdrop of teeming life, and felt an association between his continued anxiety and one of the little square icons on her HUD, which was marked with the transponder code 10962. He had joined one of the main skylanes that led away from the city like a river of lights high above her, and once clear of that, the smuggler would be free to head for orbit. That, she decided, would be the better time to make the intercept, when there was no danger of a collision with civilian craft.

She stayed low for the time being, hugging the rooftops, knowing that the sensors on a private yacht wouldn't be able to track her against the ground clutter, and that there was virtually no low-altitude air traffic over this blighted part of the city. Her own sensors were far more sophisticated than the yacht's, and were therefore able to pick up Ildra's fighter likewise skimming the skyline as her master hunted the ground convoy. _She'll have to stop them alone if she can't raise the police,_ she thought, and realised that she herself had the far easier half of this mission. All she needed to do was turn around an unarmed yacht, whilst her master was potentially left to fight seven arms dealers alone. _She can handle it,_ she tried to reassure herself, even as she watched the yacht turn at an intersection of skylanes and banked to follow.

"Master, can you read me?" she said into her headset microphone. "Master, do you copy?"

There was still no reply. _The comms are being jammed from the landspeeders, then, and the trackers from the yacht. It certainly makes enough sense - the yacht couldn't maintain a normal flight profile if it was jamming comms, and has more to worry about from being tracked._

Just then, the yacht broke from the other traffic and began a steep, accelerating climb to the east. Searching the Force once more before committing herself, she reached out to the yacht and its pilot, recognizing him as the same nervous man she had sensed back at the stakeout. Wasting not a moment more, she pitched up and opened the throttle, and was rewarded with a hard shove in her chest as the little arrow-shaped fighter leapt skywards.

"Joatek Centre, this is Jedi Bastila Shan, callsign 40877, climbing through one-thousand. Do you read?"

The initial reply was one of static, but in the midst of it were what sounded like words, and she repeated her call, this time receiving the reply,

"40877, Joatek Centre, reduce speed immediately to one thousand and maintain altitude."

"Joatek Centre, 40877, sorry, but I can't comply. I'm in pursuit of a craft involved in the transportation of illegal arms, squawking 10962."

"40877, Centre…" there was some hesitation in the controller's heretofore-demanding tone, "you're approaching shipping lanes. Reduce speed to one thousand and do not exceed six thousand until authorised."

"Centre, 40877, the suspect is jamming my ability to track him beyond sensor range. I'm sorry, but I must intercept," she said as she rocketed through 5,000 metres, taking care to grant a wide berth to the skylane at 7,000.

Another hesitation, leading to: "40877, Centre, what is your authorisation?"

According to her HUD, the yacht was accelerating rapidly now, probably at full power, which was still not enough to escape her, and she had already closed the range to twenty kilometres and narrowing. One of the controller's colleagues was probably having a rather heated conversation with the smuggler right now, demanding to know why he had deviated from his assigned speed. She felt the pilot's anxiety blossom into outright panic, as it must have become apparent to him that he stood no chance of escape.

"Centre, 40877, I'm on assignment from the Gavryn Justice Department. Please excuse me, but I'm switching frequencies to attempt to contact the smuggler. Be advised that I will stay clear of all civilian traffic. 40877 out."

Guessing that the smuggler was probably on the departure frequency, that's what she switched to, and immediately heard her suspicion confirmed.

"…not been cleared for orbit. Reduce speed to nine thousand. Do you copy?"

"10962, this is Jedi Bastila Shan. I am closing on you from astern, range eighteen kilometres and narrowing. You are under arrest for the transport of illegal arms in violation of Gavryn Planetary Statute 651-8H, and are hereby ordered to reduce speed and descend immediately. Do you copy?"

There being no reply, and the craft not varying its speed or heading, she armed her twin laser cannons and locked on with targeting sensors. She did not, of course, need sensors to aim, but the warning it would set off in the yacht's cockpit would give the pilot something to think about. She waited for the range to close to fifteen, eyes riveted on the HUD and on what appeared to be an especially bright blue star in the night sky, then repeated her warning. Again, there was no response, and both ships were now approaching orbital velocity as they streaked up through the rapidly-thinning air of the upper stratosphere. Without the danger of atmospheric pressure, however, she was free to push the throttle to the stops, and watched the range number on her HUD shrink far more rapidly than before. Thirteen…twelve…eleven…ten…nine…

"10962, reduce speed and descend immediately, or I shall open fire."

She could almost see the departure controller jump halfway out of her seat when she heard, "40877, Gavryn Departure, _do not fire_ live weapons in my airspace! Is that understood?"

Ignoring the controller entirely, Bastila instead expounded on her warning to the smuggler, "10962, if you don't comply, I have orders to force your surrender, and I _shall _fire upon you."

Silence.

She flipped off the safety catch blocking her trigger, waited a second more in hope that the smuggler might actually turn around, and, when he didn't, squeezed. A pair of amber bolts light the black sky - her canopy auto-dimming just enough that she wasn't blinded - and glanced off the yacht's shields in the distance. What followed was a twisting of the ship's blue engine glow, the "star" vanished, and for a moment, she feared that she might have done more damage than she intended. That was only for a moment, however, before she understood that the yacht had turned hard about and was coming straight back at herself. At these speeds, the intervening eight kilometres was covered in a few seconds, and by the time she had completed a gut-wrenching turn, the yacht was already passing her on its way down.

"Jedi, this is 10962 descending as you ordered," the smuggler said with an especially derisive air.

"I expect the prosecutor will add reckless flying to your charges now," she retorted. "I'd advise you to reduce your speed and not to try anything like that again."

"Well…" there was an awkward pause, "tough shit, Jedi."

This time, she couldn't even see the lights of the yacht's engines against the massive sea of lights below, but she could feel the ship turn again, and felt danger flare up like a fire on her back. The yacht was clearly no ordinary pleasure craft equipped with hidden storage compartments, not if it could maneuver like that, and there was no telling what other modifications…

She was taking evasive action before her cockpit alarms squealed their warning that she was locked up, before she saw the flashes, before the shots had a chance to hit home. Cursing her complacency as she snap-rolled to the left, she simultaneously switched on her electronic countermeasures suite. The incessant soprano squawk of the threat alarm assailed her ears all the way through a hard, spiraling turn, and then she flung her fighter back to the right as amber light flared outside her canopy. Chopping the power, she twisted back up and to the left, and for a fraction of a heartbeat, caught a glimpse of the yacht still turning right and overshooting precisely as she had hoped. She continued rolling left until she had rolled through 270 degrees, then pulled the stick back as far as it would go and fed in power to the engines. The smuggler was a clever sort, though, and quite possibly a combat veteran, she surmised from his apparent familiarity with dogfighting. Knowing she could turn inside of him, he, too, reversed his direction, and cut across her nose. She had time enough for just one shot from each barrel, but both struck his dorsal shields near the stern, right where she intended.

Passing behind the yacht, she commenced a turn to fall in on its tail, only to feel the hot imminence of danger once more. She instinctively pulled up, but not before a shot angled off her port shields. _An auto-targeting tail gun?_ she scarcely had time to ponder as she jinked away from the source of the fire, then came back around for another pass. Her port shields were holding at seventy percent, but so were the shields of the yacht. _Time to do something about that._ Finding herself with another ephemeral firing window, she squeezed the trigger and watched a trio of bolts stitch their way back along the yacht from nose to tail. No sooner had she let off the trigger, however, than she was obliged to push into a stomach-churning dive to escape the anticipated fire of the tail gun, which missed her by the narrowest of margins. Then she was in a climbing turn back to the right, even as the yacht continued to the left, putting in another pair of shots on its port quarter as it came around to meet her. Its shields were now barely operative, but its pilot still appeared hell-bent on escape, for a second after she had crossed underneath it, her fighter was shaken by another hit from the tail gun. She had inadvertently placed herself directly astern and slightly below, and was hit yet again before she had twisted clear of the enemy's field of fire.

Fresh alarms were sounding in the cockpit, all of them ignored by Bastila, who was by now completely focused on besting the smuggler. She pulled into a vertical climb, crushing herself down into the seat, crested the peak, and fell on her foe from above. The yacht was coming around, the pilot trying to bring his forward guns to bear, but she was first on target, her cannon thumping away, the amber bolts slicing into the yacht's forward shields, which flickered and failed. One of her shots grazed the starboard engine pod, which threw out a fountain of sparks and debris, and the yacht reeled in the direction of the dead engine.

"10962, this is Jedi Bastila Shan advising that you surrender immediately. Your shields are down and you…"

The right turn had aimed the yacht's tail at her again, and she could feel the gun swiveling to meet her. Her preternatural reflexes didn't fail her, however, and she squeezed off a single shot that struck the turret dead on. A momentary wave of relief washed over her, but it was only very momentary. A second later, the yacht was torn asunder, shredded from the inside out in a spray of fire and light and twisted shrapnel.

Chopping the throttle, she pulled up hard to avoid the blast, then banked into a gentle, circling turn, her heart still pounding in her chest, her face cold and clammy, her stomach suddenly plummeting as she thought of the tons of debris raining down on the unsuspecting people below. _I only hit the gun!_ _I barely hit the engine, and then I hit the gun, and that was it! That couldn't have blown it up! I couldn't have done that… Oh, but all those people down there!_

"40877, Gavryn Departure, what's your status?"

_I only hit the gun!_

"40877, Gavryn Departure, do you copy?"

The controller's voice was wholly changed from before, having grown soft, subdued, concerned. It took Bastila several seconds to process her words, however, as she found herself staring down at the city lights. Then, when she had, she ignored them completely, opting instead to roll her fighter onto its back and dive.

"40877, Departure, I've lost contact with 10962. Can you confirm?"

"He's dead," she mumbled with half-numb lips. "Alert emergency crews on the ground…the debris…"

She never heard the controller's response, her mind already reaching out to the largest piece of debris, focusing on it until she could almost feel the hot, jagged metal and composite, until she could push against it. She pushed with what she thought felt like all her strength, and yet it barely seemed to move. The pursuit and subsequent dogfight had taken her clear past Joatek, but there were the still sprawling, crowded suburbs below that were home to tens of thousands. The realisation that innocents would die because of _her_ mistake - and she _must_ have made some dreadful mistake for the yacht to have exploded like that - tore at her heart and set tears trickling from the corners of eyes squeezed shut against the physical world. _Then act! Don't allow that to happen!_ she screamed at herself, forcing past the pain, casting the heartache from her being as one would brush aside a wisp of smoke. _Act!_

The plummeting missile, which she now knew to be an engine, was still massive, still possessed of great inertia, but she now felt within herself a force equal to this. When she pushed this time, the engine moved, and the aura of deadly menace surrounding it faded. Widening her focus, she found the second engine and, seizing hold of it, worked against it with her full strength until it, too, no longer felt as if it was a threat to anyone. One by one, she pushed and pulled, steering the pieces to a harmless impact, but time was not infinite, and many of the smaller shards escaped her, and she felt at the end little flares of pain and shock and terror…but no death… Yes, there was no death.

"…steer two-two-zero and hold above one-one-thousand. Do you copy?" the controller's voice spoke urgently in her ears.

A disorienting pang of vertigo shot through her as her eyes snapped open, and she drew in a long, rattling breath that she didn't know she had been holding. She felt a tremor running through the fighter and instantly scanned the displays, but the warning alarms were all out. Her shields were nearly dead, but there was nothing that would affect controllability… _My hands…_ She began to feel her own body again, as though she had gone entirely numb for a time, and realised that she was shaking. Her right hand, clenched around the stick, was shaking, and thereby shaking the fighter. _Stop that… Stop it!_

"40877, Departure, what's your situation? Do you copy?"

"Departure, 40877," she said, still half-breathless, as her hands worked the controls. "Steering two-two-zero, holding above one-one-thousand. Request vector for landing at Air Station Tulraet."

* * *

"Are you quite certain you're well enough for this, Master?" she asked Ildra as she eyed the sling holding her master's left arm.

Perhaps deliberately, Ildra still wore the same robe she had been wearing when she broke in on the sale of arms to representatives of a local crime syndicate, and in the grey-brown cloth was a tattered, singed hole where a blaster bolt had slipped past her defence and grazed her left lung. Whether that shot came from one of the arms dealers or from one of the Gavryn Federal Justice Department agents who had arrived on the scene, she said she didn't know, and Bastila believed her. Of the seven dealers who had been in the convoy, Ildra had killed one and wounded three, and the remaining three - whom she said she believed would have surrendered - had died in the firefight that ensued after the GFJD showed up. Of the four buyers, only one was still alive, and in critical condition.

"The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we leave," her master replied with a bitterness in her words that frankly shocked Bastila.

They were walking briskly through a broad corridor with deep purple carpet and gleaming white walls decorated with holoportraits; and were escorted by a thirty-ish man in a black suit that seemed specifically tailored to best display his imposingly muscular physique. Bastila didn't know his name and found that she didn't need to in order to know that she disliked him. He radiated self-absorbed arrogance, and a coarseness masked by a thin veneer of civilisation that she suspected could peel away without too much provocation. A schoolyard-bully-turned-lawman, she decided_._ (A small, petty corner of her psyche thought that it would be eminently satisfying to show this thug that he could be beaten by a teenage girl, but that remained little more than a vague impulse that mercifully flickered out in the blink of an eye.)

The man led them to a large, white door with a polished gold nameplate, stopped, and turned the handle.

"Ladies," he said with artificial politeness as he opened and held the door for them. Ildra respectfully inclined her head as she passed, whereas Bastila kept her posture rigid and her gaze fixed straight ahead. She could almost feel his eyes on her backside before the door shut behind her, and this time the urge to give him a proper thrashing was more than a fleeting impulse. It was one that shamed her in light of her training, yet she couldn't shake the conviction that it would somehow have been right.

_Discipline! Jedi are above such things!_

She turned her attention to the elliptical room in which she now stood, with its purple and burgundy carpets and upholstery, its white accented with gold, its obvious luxury that barely managed to avoid straying into the realm of pretentiousness. The floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked a lush garden full of flowering plants in nearly every colour of the rainbow, and, beyond and below that, Gavryn's capital city of Phoros spread out in an orderly grid of permacrete and transparisteel. In the Centre of the floor was the seal of the GFJD stitched into the carpet, and just beyond that squatted a large, black wooden desk. Standing behind it was a tall, pale, elegant man with warm, emotive eyes set above a stern mouth and jaw and beneath a tall forehead crowned with close-cropped black hair.

"Ladies," he said simply, even curtly, in an authoritative bass-baritone before settling into a red leather chair.

"Solicitor General," Ildra replied as she and Bastila stopped and bowed.

A taut silence filled the office for several seconds, during which Bastila noted Paemat's lips pursing ever so slightly, his fingers crooked somewhat loosely about the arms of his chair. He had returned their bow with a scarcely-perceptible nod, and now seemed to be studying them and gathering his thoughts.

"Three men, two women," he began with slow deliberation, "and four children…hospitalised with injuries ranging from broken bones to a punctured kidney."

He let his words hang in the air, let them take their effect, particularly on Bastila, who could at least remind herself that it would have been far worse were it not for her efforts.

"Victims of a criminal who made a business of selling arms to other criminals, who have in turn murdered thousands," Ildra stated coolly.

"True, but a criminal who was shot down over a densely-populated area, and without the authorisation of this office, I might add."

"Even while I was in hospital overnight, I reviewed Padawan Shan's gun camera footage and comms recording, and I can objectively state that she acted precisely as she should have. She gave the smuggler ample warning, and when she initially fired, it was only in the form of warning shots. It was the smuggler who initiated the combat, and even then, every one of Padawan Shan's shots was perfectly placed to _disable_, not destroy."

"And yet, as I can easily see on the very same gun camera recording, that ship exploded less than a second after she shot out its rear blaster turret."

"A hit which should not have resulted in a catastrophic detonation under any normal circumstance. Obviously, that yacht had been heavily modified, and I think it's very likely that some of those alterations compromised its safety."

"I see," he said with a tone and expression that said he didn't believe a word of it.

"Furthermore, I should like to add in Padawan Shan's defence: do you think it's by coincidence that all of the largest pieces of debris landed in an empty park and a pond? They landed there because she sent them there, and without her actions following the explosion, there would have been far more people injured…and killed."

"Maybe so, but this entire affair was still a disaster."

"It was never Padawan Shan's intention, or mine, to shoot down that craft, but to apprehend the man alive. In fact, my original plan was to track him to his home port so that we could ultimately stop the flow of arms from its source."

"A valid enough plan, but you didn't exactly follow it, did you?"

"We _couldn't. _We placed a tracking device on the yacht's hull, but its signal was jammed from the moment of liftoff. Considering that our presence at the landing site went undetected, and that Jedi tracking equipment is highly-classified technology, I find it remarkable that a common smuggler was able to manage that. I have to wonder, with all due respect to yourself, if your own department might not be infiltrated with informants? The syndicates do have very deep pockets, after all."

If Paemat was at all insulted by her insinuation, he gave no outward evidence of it.

"Not so deep as this government, and, in any case, I know how to keep a handle on my own people. It's my belief that your snooping around Joatek didn't go as unnoticed as you intended, and that your Jedi technology isn't so secret as you'd like to believe. After all, my own people didn't find it too hard to keep tabs on you during your investigation.

"Forgive me for saying so, Master Jedi, but it has always been and continues to be my opinion that your involvement in this investigation was never necessary nor prudent. I say 'this investigation,' and not 'your investigation,' because my department, which you seem to think is either corrupt or incompetent, has been hunting these smugglers for the last fourteen months. How do you think one of our tactical response teams was able to come to your aid within sixty seconds of your ridiculous one-woman attack? We were trailing them, the same as you."

"And were you going to arrest them when they made the sale?" Ildra pressed, thoroughly unfazed by Paemat's revelation, which she had been expecting to come in some form or another.

"It has always been my plan to destroy the syndicates and their allies entirely - and all at once - but only when we have sufficient evidence to ensure convictions. Your escapades last night may have stopped one shipment of guns, but it's also guaranteed to drive other arms dealers deeper under cover. Now I have to move immediately and try to snatch up everybody I can before they disappear completely. I've been up all night and all this morning coordinating planetwide operations that weren't supposed to be executed for months to come."

"While I'm very sorry to disrupt your plans, can I ask how many people would have been murdered in those 'months to come?'" Ildra fired back in an icy tone.

At this, Paemat's calm finally cracked, and he rose from his chair with hands braced on the desk. When he spoke, though, it was still in an unsettlingly even, measured cadence.

"Don't you think I know that? Do you think I just ignore the losses? That I see those people as just numbers? Let me tell you something: I grew up in those streets out there," he said, gesturing to the city behind and below, "and my father rode the tube home from work every night. Then, one night when I was thirteen, he was stepping off the train when a gang initiate stepped from the crowd and shot him seven times. According to the police, he was killed at random as a…rite of passage."

He sat back down, folded his hands on his desk, and fixed Ildra with his hard stare, and then Bastila. She fought the urge to look away, met the stare instead, tried to imagine her gaze piercing his own, and… Paemat was certainly skilled at emotional discipline, but this story brought up memories too vivid for him to bury, and even when barely touching the surface of his mind, she saw them as clearly as she saw his face now. It took all her self-control to conceal her shock, and even then she couldn't be entirely certain that it didn't show on her face. _His father beat his mother…and him…and his sister… Burned his arms with a lighter when he ten… It was a relief when he didn't come home. He certainly never shed a single tear for that man in all his life._

"Don't you dare say that I don't think or care about what my decisions cost…because I know exactly what the price is."

_Liar! Hypocrite!_ she wanted to snap at him, but held her tongue. She watched him "regain his composure," take a cleansing breath and release it, knowing that it was all a despicable piece of theatre.

"The request for your involvement originated at the office of the Premier, and I have spoken with him earlier today on this, and he has agreed that it was a mistake," he said slowly, carefully. "There will be no complaints lodged with the Jedi Council, but your presence here is no longer desired by this government, and you are to depart Gavryn at your earliest convenience…preferably no later than tomorrow. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly clear, sir," Ildra said. "We shan't…inconvenience you any longer. Good-day."

Following her lead, Bastila bowed, then turned and marched swiftly from the room. The thug in the suit was waiting outside to escort them from the building, but Ildra dismissed him with a commanding, "We know the way out." With the weight of the Force behind her words, there was no argument on his part, merely an accepting nod and a mumbled, "Yes, you know the way out."

They walked in silence for perhaps half a minute, until they were certain they were out of earshot of Paemat's guard.

"Your suspicion was very well founded, Bastila," said Ildra. "Paemat meant all along to use us to lead his men to the sale, and then claim that we disrupted his larger operation. He'll say that he was only following orders when his office requested our assistance, so Xorajen will take the blame…or at least as much blame as anybody will take in this. If there is ever a formal inquiry held, we'd be found guiltless, but there won't be an inquiry, because it would be too embarrassing for too many powerful people, and politicians are in the habit of taking credit, not responsibility. Instead, we'll be the ones vilified by the local media, since the best scapegoats are always the ones who aren't around to defend themselves."

"That's disgusting," Bastila sneered. "Just as disgusting as Paemat using his father's death for sympathy."

Ildra looked over at her with a raised eyebrow.

"His father was a horrible, violent man, and Paemat was glad when he died."

"You were reading him?"

"He practically shouted it at me," she answered defensively.

"I believe you." Ildra managed a thin smile.

They walked on for a ways, turned a corner, and a nagging thought crept up from the depths of Bastila's consciousness.

"Is that how the Republic works, too?"

Looking over at Ildra, she thought she detected a hesitation born of cognitive dissonance, but she may have imagined it, or her Master might simply have been weary from her ordeal of the night before. Indeed, how she was functioning at all was something of a minor miracle.

"To an extent, I suppose it is, but not like this. The majority of the senators are decent - if not always completely honest - and have an interest in the welfare of their homeworlds. I won't pretend that the system is perfect, because it's not, but… Yes, in the end, I _do_ believe that it works for the greater good, and not just for the benefit of a few."

Bastila nodded, accepted the answer. Yes, the whole system couldn't be as rotten as here on Gavryn, where the people came a distant second to the ambitions of their leaders. After all, the Jedi had fought for millennia to defend and preserve the Republic, and they would never serve so vile a system. She sought to turn her thoughts elsewhere, and of course they inevitably turned to guilt, to the people injured last night by the debris of the smuggler's yacht.

_You did nothing wrong._ _Ildra herself said that all of your shots were perfectly placed. There must have been some design flaw…or something._ She could still see the explosion in her mind's eye, could see the flash erupt from the hull… _But not from the tail. The explosion didn't start at the tail._

"Master, when you watched my gun camera recording, did you notice where the explosion started?"

"You mean amidships? Yes, I noticed that."

"Then how could my shot have triggered it?"

"I've thought about it, and if the turret wasn't properly shielded from the rest of the power systems, there would have been a backsurge. That would suggest very shoddy workmanship, though, and those people could easily have afforded better."

"You don't suppose it was…suicide?"

"Oh, I've thought of that, too. Gavryn's prisons aren't renowned for their humane conditions, and that pilot would have known he couldn't escape once you disabled his rear gun. Either way," she stopped, turned to Bastila, laid her hands on her shoulders and looked squarely into her eyes, "_you are not to blame._ You did everything right, Bastila. You did everything right, and you saved a lot of innocent people from being killed when you deflected the debris. You should never have had to fight alone last night, but when you did, you did it brilliantly. I couldn't have asked any more of you."

Feeling her cheeks warm, Bastila nodded quickly, looked down, muttered, "Thank you, Master… Thank you."

Ildra held her for a moment longer, then lifted away her hands and crossed the threshold into the expansive, domed lobby of the Justice Department building.

Bastila felt marginally comforted, and forced herself to admit that she was not at fault for what had happened. _But you might still have killed a man._ If she did, it was in combat, wherein he had certainly tried his best to kill her, but it was still not a thing to be dismissed. _I did what I needed to protect myself, and how many others will live because of the weapons seized last night? Besides which, he might have killed himself, anyway._ It was difficult for her to conceive of how a man could be so fearful of capture that he would prefer death, but then she knew little of the alternative he faced. Even so, a strange unease lingered in the back of her thoughts, as if there was a third possibility which she couldn't see._ You're tired - you didn't sleep at all last night_, she told herself. _You always obsess when you're tired._

She stepped outside into the oppressively muggy afternoon air, which did little to renew her. Her fighter was parked on a landing platform a hundred metres distant, and when her eyes latched onto it, she thought of how welcome it would be to jump to hyperspace, set the autopilot, and go to sleep. That was, if she could sleep at all when her thoughts were still so troubled. _I did nothing wrong,_ she repeated for the thousandth time since last night. Creeping up from the recesses of her weary psyche was the spine-chilling sensation that there was, indeed, something dreadfully wrong, but this time it was marginally clearer, and she felt that whatever troubled her was none of her doing, as though there were something wrong with this world, or perhaps even the galaxy itself. _You're too tired-you're not thinking clearly anymore. …And there certainly are many things wrong with this world._

Putting more strength into her steps as she crossed the pale blue landing platform, she sought to banish the unbidden thoughts, to push them back from whence they came. _Discipline, Bastila. There is no chaos, there is harmony._ She reached out to the canopy controls of her fighter from twenty metres away, entered the access code without physically touching the keypad. _I did nothing wrong,_ her inner monologue repeated, the thought so clear and assured as to take on an aspect of finality. _But others did…and do._

* * *

12 Dûlif, 4 ÛÉ (Deralín Calendar)

The morning was permeated with a damp chill that cut through the thin yellow cloth of the jumpsuit to dig deep into flesh and bone, but he had already been shivering before the doors ever opened. Strong hands girded with cold metal were crushing his biceps, and were inexorably dragging him through the parted doors. His feet shuffled helplessly from the lusterless tiles of the corridor behind to the snow-dusted permacrete of the courtyard ahead, too weak to offer any meaningful resistance, and his first gasping breath of the outside air stung his throat. All around him, windowless grey walls stretched to the sky around a narrow courtyard, forming the impression of being at the bottom of a deep well, and all was bathed in shadow, but he could clearly see a row of metal poles along the far wall. At the sight of this, the flutter of his heart blossomed into staccato hammer beats, and the biting chill was eclipsed by a burning terror that swept him.

He had spent the last few weeks striving to mentally prepare himself for this moment, or at least as much as any man could, and he had resolved that, when the time came, he would meet his end with dignity and defiance. At times, he had even entertained the idea of spitting on his executioner just before the shot was fired, but decided that he might not be able to time it right, and ought instead to spit on whomever shackled him to the post. In the event, however, when he stepped into that courtyard, his plans dissolved in a wave of pure, animal fear, and his entire body convulsed, his every muscle straining to escape.

"No!" he heard shouted - no, screamed - by a voice that wasn't his own.

The metal gauntlets dug mercilessly into his arms and a new hand slammed into his right kidney with agonizing effect, but his eyes remained riveted on the row of metal poles that stood like ancient monuments. Above the pounding of his heart, a slower, more rhythmic beat echoed off the walls and shook in his head as he was dragged onwards, onwards toward the poles, setting the cadence of the guards' steps.

Though the courtyard couldn't have been more than thirty-five metres long, to cross it seemed to take an eternity, with the events of his life playing back in his mind as his body thrashed around him. How had it come to this? It didn't seem possible for decades of carefully-planned successes to culminate in this, not when he had weathered so many crises before. He had, after all, survived his more unscrupulous rivals, the occasional crusading idealist bureaucrat, the Republic Ministry of Justice; even the Mandalorians had passed him by, although he was forced to concede that that was thanks largely to happy chance. History had told him, though, that as regimes came and went, life largely went on as it always had, provided that one kept one's wits and a low profile. That was why he had decided, when the Republic fell, to go into early retirement after three terms as Premier of Gavryn. With no shortage of assets to his name, he had slipped away to a quiet, terraformed moon where no one had ever heard of him, and settled into a life of leisure.

The crash in the middle of the night had torn that delusion from him as it had torn him from a sound sleep. Swift black figures were briefly glimpsed through blurry eyes, and then followed a flash of blue as a stun bolt plunged him into darkness. When he awoke, he was in a 2x2.5 metre cell that he guessed to be aboard a starship - whereas he was blindfolded when he was taken from that cell to another one perhaps a day or so later, he would never be certain. Days and weeks passed uncounted as he was then repeatedly taken in and out of that cell for a long series of dream-like interrogations. Having been a solicitor and then a politician for all of his adult life, he had thought himself a masterful spinner of stories, and a liar with no tells, but when he sat cuffed in that ill-padded chair in that darkened room, his decades of experience failed him. He found his once-fertile imagination suddenly barren, his memories all but screaming to be set free from the box in which he had formerly kept them safely hidden, his cunning turned to apathy; and when the questions were asked, he was all but powerless to hold back. Once in a great while, when asked about something especially damning, he would regain some of his composure and resolve and try to invent something, only to feel a little pinch in his wrist. His interrogators would then seemingly go on break for a short while, and when they returned, the question would be repeated, and this time he would spill the truth.

In some of his more lucid moments, when he felt some of his confidence and discipline returning, he had made efforts to talk his way out, to cajole, to influence. When he found not the slightest trace of sympathy in any of his jailers, he turned to bribery, only to be informed that his assets had already been seized. Just for good measure, though, his attempt was rewarded with a week of half rations. Finally, in desperation, he turned to spilling the names of persons about whom he wasn't even asked, but nothing appeared to come of that, either.

He didn't know just how long the questioning went on, but when it was finally over, his days were then spent in a grand courtroom staring at stone-faced judges in their dark crimson jackets and waistcoats as they listened to the evidence being presented, knowing all the while that he was guilty of every crime of which he stood accused. Above all else, he knew that the universe as it had once been was gone forever when he heard his sentence had felt in that moment as though the ground had fallen out from beneath his feet and his heart had frozen in his chest_._

It was in that horrifying, sickening, disorienting moment when the word "death" struck his hears that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was not just another regime, that it was far more than another set of tax collectors and bureaucrats, that it was something else entirely. A witch-hunt, a crusade, and revolution… He couldn't say what precisely it was, only that it was something new and unknown and utterly terrifying, and that it was about to kill him, and that he was powerless against it.

The centremost post in the row loomed large before him as drumbeat fell silent, and his escorts roughly turned him about, the fight largely gone from his limbs. A third man, who remained on the fringes of his sight, moved to stay behind him, and he heard a clatter and jingle of metal as a clasp was fastened around the centre of his cuffs. He was still muttering "No, no, please no," or something to that effect, though his thrashing had degenerated into a drunken reeling that posed little challenge to his guards. There was a quick, sharp _whirr_, and he was reeled in sharply by his wrists, the cuffs striking the pole a split-second before the back of his head followed suit. When he finally saw the third man step around from in back, it transpired that he - like the other two - was clad from head-to-toe in black armor, with his eyes hidden behind green lenses. (Actually, although he assumed that his executioner was male, there was a woman's face behind that armored mask, but this was impossible to discern from the outside.)

His vision was blurred - whether from snowflakes or from tears he would never know - as the armored trio took five measured steps away, stopped, and turned. He had half-expected an offer of a blindfold, or the chance to make some final statement (not that he would have had anything particularly cogent or profound to say), but no such courtesies were forthcoming. There were no formalities, no reading of charges, no words spoken whatsoever before the executioner drew her sidearm and casually took one-handed aim. In that final second, his parched mouth hung open slightly, but he drew no breath, standing helplessly frozen in place as if mesmerised by the little round muzzle of the pistol pointing at his head. A green flash swallowed what was left of his world.

* * *

Somewhat abnormally for the season, there wasn't a hint of morning fog, and the warm, slanting rays of the rising sun were streaming in through the windows. Pausing to admire the view, she sipped hot _dír _from a crystal mug with a silver handle finely-wrought in the likeness of twisted vines and leaves. Casually dressed in a loose-fitting shirt and trousers, and with slim slippers in place of patent-leather jackboots, she still wore her hair tied up in a loose bun, and still managed to appear as imposingly regal as she did in full uniform.

It occurred to her as she drank, as she held the sweet brew on her tongue, savouring its richness before letting it glide gently down her throat, that she had no realistic need of it. She hadn't _needed_ to eat or drink anything at all for the last three years, nine months, and twelve days, though she still did. She had once pondered if she did so merely out of habit's sake, or out of a subconscious desire to cling to some trappings of normality, only to conclude that she did so purely because she _enjoyed the experience._ She enjoyed _dír _and tea and fresh, juicy _fantir_ just as she enjoyed the warmth of the sun on her face and the wind in her hair and the exceedingly fair vista that met her eyes through those windows every morning. Whatever she had become, she still adored fine music and pastel sunsets and the songs of the birds that nested in the trees by the river; she still adored Revan's pale eyes and tender caresses and the warmth of his flesh pressed against her own. Yes, there were some ways in which she remained irrevocably human.

Bastila-Méthnin - Admiral of the Imperial Navy, First Deputy Commander-in-Chief, and future Érilin - sat down at her desk and turned on her computer terminal. As ever, she was at once confronted with a depressingly lengthy list of reports and requests from across the Empire. The news that came these days was almost enough to make her yearn for the closing months of the War, when the fate of the galaxy hinged on decisions made by her and Revan in their cabin on the battleship _Deralí_, when the course of history was turned in the span of an afternoon. Gone were the days of staggering victories, supplanted by the interminable grind of counter-insurgency operations. Little more than four years ago, her knowledge of counter-insurgency ops consisted only of what she had gleaned from the Republic military coursevids she had watched when her master wasn't about. As with large-scale naval tactics, however, she had proven herself to be a swift learner with a natural talent for "the business."

_Lucky me._

She took another sip of tea as she made a quick scan of the list. _Bombings, sniping, industrial sabotage…_ Many worlds had accepted the change with relative peace and calm, suffering only scattered acts of terrorism committed by isolated malcontents, but others had degenerated into a state of total chaos. Apart from arresting anti-Imperial government officials and gutting organised crime, the SD was leaving it to the military to establish order on such planets. Bastila could scarcely fault Meric for doing so, the Security Directorate being far too small to tackle such massive problems, which were, in any event, never within its purview to begin with. Even so, there were moments - brief moments for which she silently cursed herself afterwards - in which she wished that it was someone else's problem. It was a dirty business in which more civilians were being killed than anybody else, and she would rather have had no part of it, but at least this was not her doing. During the War, she had felt more keenly the blood on her conscience than she did now, when criminals - for they were nothing more than criminals - were setting off bombs in city streets. Every decision she took was but a response to this, and an attempt to end this pointless violence.

As she read, one report in particular jumped out at her, in no small part because it was tagged as coming from Meric, rather than from the General Staff or a field commander. It was a single line, and read:

_Spinara Prison, 4__th__ Brigade, Carida Division _- _Prisoner 459HRG070 Paemat, Ister - Shot 0334 TsMM 12 Dûlif, 4 ÛÉ_

She paused, re-read the words, and, reading her change in mood, Revan looked up at her from behind his own desk. The news hadn't exactly come as a surprise to her, since she had been informed when Paemat was arrested, but it did bring closure on a not-so-fondly-remembered chapter of her life._ I wonder how he felt, at the end, knowing that justice had finally prevailed? It may have taken sixteen years, but justice _has_ prevailed._ She took another sip from her mug. _Yes, Ildra, I have learnt to be patient,_ she mused with a wry smile. _But I can afford to be, now, can't I?_

"What news, _gíal?_" he queried, looking over at her with a concerned softness to his features.

"Oh, just an old villain done with," she answered, spinning her chair to face him. "Ister Paemat was shot this morning."

"Ister Paemat… Ah, the pernicious cretin who rose to power on Gavryn by selling arms to the crime syndicates that butchered and terrorised his own people; by then using the violence of a few as an excuse to oppress the many; and by making himself look the hero when he 'won' the war on crime that he had so enflamed?"

"And who went on to become the de facto dictator who ruled Gavryn through fear and division almost right up until Victory Day," she concluded. "Yes, that's the man. Or, should I say, _was _the man."

Her thoughts took a different turn just then, and her heart grew cooler and lighter, and she leaned further back in her chair, relaxed.

"It's ironic, I suppose, that my first assignment as a Jedi should have gifted me with my first hints that I was not a Jedi. It was on Gavryn, after all, that I first began to see reality, even if it was with clouded eyes."

Revan smiled at her warmly, sweetly, with eyes faintly aglow. He said nothing, but only because no words were needed. She knew to the depths of her being that he loved her with all that he was, and that nothing could ever alter that fact. Their love would endure, as they would endure. The troubles of the present would pass in time, just as the War itself had done so, but they would endure. The future beckoned, for it was the future which they were creating - that was their purpose, as they had decided it, and their literal reason for being. It was sixteen years ago that she had first begun to formulate that purpose, beginning with little more than an ill-defined and unwelcome suspicion that there was something wrong.

_It was the galaxy that was wrong, and so now we remake it._

With a refreshed drive in her heart, she returned the smile, then returned to her work.


End file.
